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First Pony Plural

by AugieDog

Chapter 1: 1: Future Tense

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"Fluttershy! Guess what?"

Rainbow's shout made Fluttershy leap straight into the air above her vegetable garden. The watering can spun from her mouth, every hair in her mane prickled like a thousand pins jabbing into her neck, and when the vision crashed over her—stomping, monstrous hooves will smash your cottage to kindling; grasping, horrible hands will bunch into fists bigger than your whole body; those eyes, that snout, that voice, those horns, they'll aim themselves right at you because

"Tirek's back!" Fluttershy shrieked.

"What?" Multicolored strands whooshed into a cyclone surrounding her. "No way!" Rainbow's voice seemed to come from everywhere. "How'd he get outta Tartarus? Did you see him? Where—?"

"Eep!" Fluttershy slapped her front hooves over her mouth, folded her wings, and sank through the whirling tornado to land in the damp soil of her kale bed. "I'm sorry, Rainbow," she mumbled. "You said to guess, so I...I just...just..."

The wind froze, the colors all crashing into each other. Shattering and scattering and swirling away, they left Rainbow blinking there alone in the sky, her wings sticking out more like feather dusters than anything else. Fluttershy kept her mouth covered, and Rainbow dropped heavily to the ground beside her.

She'll start yelling that she was never your friend, that she's tired of your foolishness, and that she doesn't want anything more to do with you ever, ever, ever again!

But instead, Rainbow's mouth just went sideways a little. "Wait a minute. Your first guess is Tirek?"

Since she could never explain it—and doubly never to Rainbow—Fluttershy just forced a shrug.

The breath Rainbow blew through her nostrils was a little loud, but once again, she didn't start yelling. Instead, she asked, "And I s'pose your second guess has changelings in it?"

Her throat tightening, Fluttershy could barely squeak, "Should it?"

"No!" Rainbow jumped into a hover over the cabbages and waved her hooves. "It's nothing bad! Yeesh!"

She'll fly off now and never come back.

Rainbow landed. "It's just that you guys showed me with that whole zombie cookie thing that I was doing my pranks wrong, remember? That I was wasting everypony's time with the obvious stuff, messing things up pretty stupidly, and not grabbing hold of what makes a prank a real work of art, right?"

Fluttershy blinked. "Are you sure that's what we showed you?"

"Well, yeah!" Rainbow tapped her chest. "And I got the message loud and clear." She smiled, and the sparkly points of her teeth made Fluttershy want to sink straight into the ground. "Which is why I need your help for the best prank I've ever pulled!"

City Hall will be tipped over, smoke pouring from the inferno raging in the basement. Twilight will flap coughing from the sky, will demand to know who's responsible, and there you'll be, Rainbow nowhere in sight, all eyes focused on—

"Your part's simple." Rainbow was slipping her saddlebags off, her smile still much too broad and sharp. "You just stay home for the rest of the day. Sit inside and relax, and everything'll be perfect!"

Spitting the trowel from her mouth, Rainbow will laugh and laugh and laugh at the giant brick cube now encasing your cottage.

Instead of cement, though, Rainbow pulled two bottles from her pack and set them on the ground. "The problem was that I wasn't thinking about both ends of my pranks. Moving AJ's bed out into the pig sty without her or anypony else waking up? That was good, don't get me wrong. But a real prank gets as good as it gives, y'know? It gets you coming and going!" She patted the bottles, and Fluttershy saw that they were hair dye: one yellow, the other pink.

She'll be taking your place.

"So I'll be taking your place." Somehow, Rainbow's grin got even bigger. "I'll go into Ponyville with your saddlebags on, do your shopping, come back here, and I'll be you so perfectly, nopony'll ever know that I just pranked the whole town!" Laughter burst out of her, and she fell backwards among the purple and green cabbage flowers, her front legs wrapped around her chest and her hind legs kicking at the air. "It'll be classic! Better than classic!"

A herd of elephants will come stampeding through the market square. Everypony'll turn to you to help divert them, but it won't be you: it'll be Rainbow Dash!

"And don't worry." Rainbow sat up, her eyes still dancing but her smile gone. "Like I said, I learned my lesson. I won't do anything out there that you wouldn't do." The dancing of her eyes turned to a wavering, and she cringed back, the ragged cut of her bangs almost seeming to soften and stretch to cover part of her face. "I promise," she whispered, her voice so perfect that Fluttershy had to gasp. "I'll be exactly like you in every way."

A carriage will get loose, and Rainbow will rush to the rescue. And when the mayor wants to give her a medal, it'll be you up there in front of the whole town because Rainbow won't want to spoil the joke by telling them who really—

"No," Fluttershy said, the word popping out of her like air from a stuck balloon.

"No?" Rainbow's head drew back. "Whaddaya mean 'no'?"

"I mean—" Now Rainbow will start yelling that she was never your friend, et cetera, et cetera. Fluttershy winced, knowing that the terrible future she always imagined for every situation was actually going to happen this time unless— "I'll be coming with you!" she blurted out.

The silence that settled over the kitchen garden was almost worse than any yelling would've been. "Ummm," Rainbow said, and even though she didn't say it in Fluttershy's voice, Fluttershy could still hear Rainbow's wonderful impersonation of her in it. "If we're both there, that'll be one Fluttershy too many."

Fluttershy swallowed, and the only possible course of action presented itself to her. "Then," she said, standing up straight, "I'll just have to disguise myself as you."

Dash could only stare, parts of her brain spinning that she hadn't ever expected to spin. "Whoa, whoa, whoa," she finally got out. "You? Wanna do a prank? With me?"

"Ummm..." Fluttershy always had this shiver around her like Dash had seen on hot days when she'd walk with AJ down the road from Ponyville to Sweet Apple Acres. But right now, even Fluttershy's shiver was shivering. "It's not that I want to, Rainbow. I have to. Because what if there's an emergency? Or—"

"Yes!" Whatever Fluttershy's long, boring, sensible reason was, Dash totally didn't care. "You and me! Pulling a prank! This is gonna be so completely great, they'll need a brand-new word for it! Awestacular, maybe!" Flaring her wings, she wrapped Fluttershy in a hug, spun around with her five or six times, then let her go, Fluttershy wobbling away a few steps before sitting down. "Of course, we won't be able to do it today." She waved at the bottles of hair dye. "I only brought yellow and pink, and we'll need the whole rainbow. And you'll need to show me your stuff!" Dash clapped her hooves. "So c'mon! Gimme your impression of me!"

For a couple heartbeats, the only movement from Fluttershy was the wavering of her sides. "I..." she finally said, "I don't want to be mean...."

"Mean?" Dash leaned forward. "What's mean about walking around Ponyville disguised as each other?" She tapped a hoof against the dirt with each reason as she thought of it. "No whoopie cushions, no itching powder, no buckets of water, no cookie zombies, nothing! Ponies won't even know we did it!"

"Not mean to them..." Fluttershy's head pulled back so her mane partly covered her face. "Mean to you..."

Again, Dash wasn't quite sure what she was hearing. "Trust me, Eff, you couldn't be mean to anypony, and especially not to your oldest and best friend in the whole wide world!" She poked Fluttershy lightly in the chest. "So c'mon! Let's go! Show me!"

Another instant of nothing, then Fluttershy blew her bangs out of the way, wrinkled her snout, rolled her eyes, and said in a raspy voice, "Yeah, okay. Whatever."

Dash couldn't stop her wings from leaping her into a hover. "That was me, wasn't it? That was totally me!"

"Really?" Fluttershy cocked her head, her eyes half-closing, her voice getting rougher. "Y'think?"

"Hmmm." Dash landed. "You're kinda edging over into Gilda there." She rubbed her chin. "Keep the coolness, but add some spark to it, y'know?" She hopped into a quick barrel roll. "Some of that Rainbow Dash magic!"

Nodding, Fluttershy pulled back into her hair again, then sprang to her hooves, her wings spread and a big grin on her face. "This is gonna be awesome!" she announced, a little too much buzz behind the words, but still—

"Yes!" Dash started to jump up herself, but stopped. "I mean—" She thought back to the minutes before the Best Young Flier competition and let that feeling tighten her throat and widen her eyes. "That was very nice," she more muttered than said. "If...if you don't mind me saying so, I mean."

Fluttershy giggled, and for the first time all day, she gave what looked to Dash like one of her regular smiles. "My goodness! This might actually be fun," she said in her own voice.

"Y'see?" Dropping the act, Dash couldn't keep from hopping up and down a few times. "That's what pranking's like when you're doing it right!" Time to get to business, though: she settled down and frowned up at the fringe of her mane. "The biggest problem's gonna be our hair. When I'm being you, I can just comb mine and say I'm trying a shorter style or something, but you?" A chill rustling her feathers, she sat back and stared at her friend's flowing pink locks. "Fun's fun, sure, but no way I'm asking you to cut yours all raggedy like mine."

Stupid reality. Always putting trees and mountains and stuff in the way when she had these great ideas!

Weirdly, though, Fluttershy just giggled again. "If you promise not to tell anypony..." She looked from side to side, and Dash did, too, even though Fluttershy's garden was tucked behind her house with nothing but lumpy grass and the Everfree Forest beyond. A couple little clicks drew her attention back to Fluttershy, her hooves up underneath the front of her mane. And then—

She pulled a whole part of her hair off, her bangs suddenly maybe half as long as before. "Extensions," she whispered with a wink. "Just like with my tail."

For a second more, Dash could only keep staring, then she was spinning Fluttershy around again. "All right! Operation Twin Sisters is go!"

****

For the next week, every time Dash saw Fluttershy in town picking up her usual batches of animal feed or plant seed or whatever, she always got a grin and a wink before Fluttershy would lift the cover of her panniers to reveal a different bottle of hair dye among the rest of her groceries. And Saturday night when Dash headed over to Fluttershy's cottage with her bedroll and her pack, Fluttershy practically dragged her upstairs to show her all the colors lined up in her bathroom along with a bottle of white. "What's that one for?" Dash asked.

"Your cutie mark," Fluttershy answered. "Or, I guess, my cutie mark." She nodded toward Dash's flank. "Angel's very good with a fine-tipped brush, and I'm sure he can put your cloud and thunderbolt on me while putting my butterflies on you. Oh! And these, of course!" She rushed into her bedroom and came floating back with a small round box balanced in her front hooves. "Iris had them in stock at the optician's just like you said!" Opening the box, she held it up to show a pair of purple-tinted contact lenses.

"Nice." Dash flipped the lid from her pack, added her bottles to the dye collection, and flapped into the next room. "Then the countdown's started. We get some sleep, wake up plenty early, and it's go time." She set the case with her own light green contact lenses on Fluttershy's dresser. "Mine'll be easiest—throw me in a tub of yellow, then do my mane and tail in pink to match your extension—so I'll go first tomorrow. Then we dip you in sky blue, stripe up your hair, have Angel fix our marks, and we'll be ready to hit the town!"

In the bathroom doorway, Fluttershy did a quick little dance. "It'll be just like Nightmare Night! Only more fun because it won't be scary!"

Untying her bedroll, Dash had to laugh. "And who knows? Might be you'll like having some actual fun."

"Rainbow..." Fluttershy's voice had more of a waver in it even than usual; Dash looked over to see her friend frowning slightly. "I have fun all the time, you know."

Dash couldn't stop a wince. "I know, Eff, I know, but your sort of fun is always so—" She tried to find the word. "Safe, I guess. I mean, safe woulda been to stop after I'd replaced Rarity's sewing machine with a cake that looked exactly like it. But then risking the whole prank by sneaking a giant decoy cake into her showroom?"

Fluttershy's frown bent downward a little further, and Dash held up her hooves. "And yeah, I know, I went too far with all that. But the point is: having parties with our friends is great, and I wouldn't trade any of that for anything. But sometimes you've gotta do something silly and stupid and just a little dangerous, y'know?" She licked her lips and quoted a line from Daring Do and the Frozen Empire. "Skating on the knife's edge."

"Hmmmm..." At least Fluttershy's frown had straightened some. Turning, she pulled open the closet door and began taking out pillows and blankets. "Well, 'silly' is something I enjoy now and again, and 'stupid' seems to happen pretty often whether I want it to or not. But 'dangerous'?" She shook her head and brought the bedding over to Dash. "Are you sure you don't want to use the bed in the spare room? It's not a cloud, but it's very comfortable."

"Comfortable?" Shaking her own head, Dash grabbed the pillows from Fluttershy's back with her wings. "We're on a mission, Eff. Until we successfully complete this prank, I'll be going out of my way to avoid being comfortable."

"Oh." Fluttershy wilted a little. "Then you don't want the blankets?"

"Of course I want the blankets!" Dash made an exaggerated grab for them. "I mean, uncomfortable's one thing, but chilly? No way!" Rolling her eyes, she grinned.

That got Fluttershy giggling, and they settled in to sleep.

Dash's inner alarm woke her before dawn had even started glowing at the curtains. She yawned, sat up, and had to blink to see Fluttershy already awake and practically vibrating on the end of her bed. "I didn't want to disturb you," she whispered, and Dash would've sworn her eyes were sparkling in the dark, "but is it time to start getting ready yet?"

They had breakfast and did Fluttershy's chores first—no use getting crumbs and bird seed all stuck in their dye jobs—then they both headed back upstairs, most of Fluttershy's animal friends twittering and chittering and following them into the bathroom. Dash stood beside the bathtub and let Fluttershy handle getting the dye mixed up since she'd worked with it before, then she dove in.

And sure, the bottles said the stuff was so magic, it would lighten the darkest coat with just one dip, but rising from the tub after splashing yellow all over herself, Dash blinked to see that she'd turned moss green. The animals found this absolutely hilarious for some reason, but when she pretended she was going to flick drops all over them, most of the ones who were just hanging around watching scattered out into the hallway.

Four times rolling around in the dye finally got her hide looking right, and Dash pulled the chain of the bathtub's plug with her teeth while she stood there drip drying. Fluttershy had been mixing up the pink dye in the sink this whole time, and one treatment turned Dash's yellow mane and tail the proper color. Untying the towel from around her head, she watched in the mirror as Fluttershy clipped the extensions into place and had to laugh: with the contacts, she was gonna be perfect.

They still had to get Fluttershy done up, though. A bunch of raccoons had been scrubbing out the tub while Fluttershy was doing Dash's hair, and they poured the blue dye in, Dash watching and trying not to laugh at the tickle of Angel dabbing a brush at her flanks to give her Fluttershy's butterflies.

It only took two dips for Fluttershy to come out Dash's exact shade of blue, and doing her mane and tail didn't take nearly as long as Dash had thought it might. The squirrels were terrific at dividing her hair into plaits, and bluejays with little sponges in their claws flapped back and forth between the bottles and where Fluttershy sat on the floor.

"I'm telling you, Eff," Dash said from the doorway, the birds in a cloud around Fluttershy, their wings fanning her so she'd dry faster, "with these guys helping, you could pull any prank you ever wanted to! They're incredible!"

Fluttershy gave a tiny smile that looked completely out of place on a blue face under a multi-colored mane. "They're very happy to hear you say that, Rainbow, but that's not really the sort of thing I'd like to encourage."

Angel was just finishing the lightning bolt on Fluttershy's left thigh, and the nod he gave was so sharp, his ears flopped back and forth like a foal trying to fly for the first time. He glared over his shoulder at the raccoons cleaning out the tub for the second time, and Dash snorted a laugh. "Well, you guys ever wanna start a life of crime, you just let me know."

At the glare Angel turned toward her, Dash nearly threw herself over backwards laughing, but she remembered her dye job at the last instant. So instead, she stomped a front hoof, cocked her head so she could see around the long pink wave of her mane, took a breath, and slipped into character. "In the meantime, I'm ever so grateful to all of you." She batted her eyes—

And realized she hadn't put her contacts in yet.

Fluttershy was blinking at her, too. "Oh, my," she murmured. "Ummm, I mean—" She shook her head, flared her wings, and stood up with a stretch. "Yep, yep, yep," she said scratchily. "That's, you know, not the weirdest thing I've ever seen. But it's pretty close."

All the animals started hopping and flapping and cheering their squeaky little cheers. Fluttershy shook her head to mess her mane up a little more and bowed.

Dash had never been prouder of her friend than at that moment. "It's so wonderful," she said, trying to put just the right amount of air behind the words. "Once we get our eyes fixed up, we'll be ready to go!"

Standing in the bathroom, popping in the lenses, watching Fluttershy beside her do the same: weird just wasn't a weird enough word for it. She flicked her gaze back and forth between the Fluttershy in the mirror in front of her and the Rainbow Dash to her left and had to tamp down hard on the urge to jump into the air. "Yes, indeed," she said instead. "This might prove to be a little bit fun."

"Are you kidding?" Fluttershy hopped into a wobbly hover and kind of hooted. "This is gonna be awesome!"

And, yeah, the voice still wasn't quite right and her smile maybe had more cheesiness in it than coolness, but that this was happening at all made up for the greater chance that somepony was gonna figure the whole thing out. Besides, since it was Fluttershy, Dash would probably just hafta wink at other ponies and get them to play along...

Downstairs, Dash picked up Fluttershy's saddlebag more carefully than she'd ever picked up anything except her first edition Daring Do books and gently slid it over her back.

Fluttershy flashed her a grin, then rolled her eyes, tapped a hoof against the carpet, and said in her rough voice, "C'mon, Fluttershy! We haven't got all day, y'know!"

With her own grin, Dash pulled back behind her bangs. "I'm sorry, Rainbow Dash." She winced inside when she used too much whimper, but she kept going anyway. "I was just trying to remember where I put the shopping list."

That got Fluttershy's lips forming into a little "o" that made her look nothing at all like Dash, then she jumped into the kitchen and came back with a piece of paper in her teeth. "I'm sorry," she muttered.

"No." Forcing her ears to stay up, Dash took the list and tucked it into her bags. "You're Rainbow Dash. You're never sorry." Turning back to a blinking Fluttershy, she put on a smile so sweet, she could nearly taste it. "Now, how about if two best friends go out and have a lovely day at the Ponyville market?"

A little spark came into those purple eyes, and Fluttershy flapped over, pulled the door open, and gestured through it with a hoof. "After you, Fluttershy," she said.

****

It took some actual effort to walk the path from Fluttershy's cottage into town, but Dash was glad to see that Fluttershy remembered to stay airborne beside her so everypony would have to crane their necks to look up at her. What she wasn't doing, though, was taking up all the air in the area talking about her latest stunt, and that was something she definitely needed to be doing if ponies were gonna believe she was Rainbow Dash...

Dash cleared her throat. "So, Rainbow Dash, how are things with the Wonderbolts these days?"

"Huh?" Fluttershy blinked, then shook herself. "Oh! Yeah! Right! This is, like, way too early to be awake, y'know?" She then launched into a story that Dash recognized bits and pieces of from stories she'd told the girls over the past couple months, but Dash wasn't really paying attention. She was too focused on the ponies strolling along the streets between Fluttershy's place and the market: it was harder than she'd thought it would be, trying to watch them while also trying to make it look like she wasn't.

Most of them looked over and waved—Dash made sure to give them that little Fluttershy nod—but none of them gaped or pointed or shouted or anything. A few looked back after looking away, a few even wrinkling their foreheads for a second or two, but that was it: every one of them shrugged and went back to whatever they'd been doing.

Excitement tickled Dash's stomach with each step she took, and she even remembered to say "Uh-huh" and "Oh, my" like she was really listening to whatever Fluttershy was jabbering about above her.

This was gonna work! Trying her best not to strut, Dash couldn't help noticing the way the tickling seemed to be spreading across her belly and out to her flanks, but she wasn't really too surprised. This was, after all, totally gonna be the greatest prank anypony had ever pulled on—

"Hey!" Fluttershy said suddenly, startling Dash into looking up. Fluttershy's wings were beating pretty fast, and her gaze seemed fixed on Dash's back.

"Hmmm?" Dash asked, not breaking character. "Why, Rainbow Dash, whatever is the—?"

The words bunched up in her throat, though, as she saw the lightning bolt cutie mark on Fluttershy's flank glowing and wavering. Her throat tightening further, she glanced back to see the same thing happening to her own pink trio of butterflies.

"What—?" Fluttershy tried to clear her throat, but she didn't seem able to, her whole body ringing like she was a bell being clanged, something that made it very difficult to concentrate. "Is...is the map calling us?"

"I...I think so." Rainbow had been doing such a very good job impersonating her that Fluttershy had found it even easier to impersonate Rainbow. It was almost as if her mind and body had looked out, seen a Fluttershy already there, and so had decided they could safely be somepony else for a while. It didn't make sense, but then, well, neither did seeing her cutie mark shimmering from Rainbow's thighs.

"But doesn't it know—?" Fluttershy started to ask, the words, '—which one of us is which?' all ready to slip over her tongue and out her mouth.

Instead, though, her throat clenched, her tongue froze, and she found she couldn't speak.

Rainbow gave a nod that made her pink mane flow like liquid cotton candy. "Before we go," she said, her voice still breathy and quiet, "we really ought to—"

But that's all she said, her lips stopping partway open. Her eyes widened, and Fluttershy could see her neck clenching like she was trying to make something come out.

Those wide eyes focused on Fluttershy. "I can't—" Rainbow said, and then stopped. She took a breath, said, "Why can't I—?" and then stopped again.

Fluttershy dropped to the ground beside her, her wings feeling too heavy suddenly to flap. "I can't, either," she rasped out, unable to say what exactly she couldn't do. Ice wanted to form in her chest, wanted to wrap around her brain and make her useless, but she wouldn't let it. "Come on!" Shaking her wings, she jumped into the air. "We'll head back to—!" But for all that she wanted to say 'my place,' nothing at all emerged from her mouth.

"Well, now!" rang out a loud and familiar voice; Fluttershy whirled to see Applejack trotting up with her apple cart trailing along behind her from the harness around her shoulders. "Looks like you two got a date at the castle, don't it!"

"Applejack!" Fluttershy cried out at the same time as Rainbow did. Rainbow kept going, though, rushing to Applejack's side and practically whining, "We can't go! We're not—!" Her jaw worked some more, but that was it.

"Aw, now, Fluttershy." Applejack patted Rainbow's foreleg. "Don't you worry a single thing about it. Dash'll be with you the whole time." Applejack looked past Rainbow with a roll of her eyes, her gaze settling on Fluttershy. "Ain't that right, RD?"

"I'm—" Fluttershy said, but as hard as she tried, she couldn't force the words, 'not Rainbow!' to pass her lips.

"See?" Applejack gave a crisp nod and patted Rainbow's leg again. "Just head on up to the castle, and the sooner y'all get wherever you're going, the sooner you'll be back."

"The castle!" Rainbow more bleated than said, and she spun away from Applejack, the butterflies still fluttering along her flank. "Twilight'll know what to do!" And before Fluttershy could even blink, Rainbow took off running toward the other side of town.

Fluttershy tried to call out to her, but the same odd blockage closed her throat. Applejack gave one of her low chuckles. "Skittish as a bucket of squirrels, but she always comes through in the end, don't she?"

"I guess." Fluttershy's ears dipped at the scratchiness of her words, but when she swallowed to clear her throat, there wasn't anything there to clear. "I, uhh, I'd better catch up to her."

"Y'all have a good time, now!" Applejack called, and Fluttershy flapped like she'd never flapped before, her attention focused on the yellow and pink pegasus galloping down the road that led to Twilight's castle.

Over and over again, Fluttershy tried calling out, but she couldn't even manage to whisper Rainbow Dash's name; panting, she finally caught up with her just as Rainbow was leaping the castle's front steps two at a time. "Wait!" she tried to say, but Rainbow was already spinning, bucking the doors open, surging inside, and rushing for the throne room.

Fortunately, those doors were open. Gliding in in Rainbow's wake, Fluttershy saw Twilight slumped in her throne, her gaze on the lightning bolt and butterfly cutie marks swirling on the map, her mouth pretty much a straight line. A shiver ran through Fluttershy, wondering where in the wide, wide world of Equestria she and Rainbow would have to go, but the sight of their marks circling Cloudsdale made her drop to the floor in relief. Somewhere familiar, at least...

"Twilight!" Rainbow shouted—though 'shouted' was really the wrong word for a sound so soft and airy. "You've got to do something! I'm not—!" And again she stopped with her mouth open and her eyes widening.

"Oh, hello, Fluttershy." Twilight didn't look away from the map. "I assume you're here with Rainbow Dash?"

"I'm—!" Rainbow started, and Fluttershy could almost see her neck bulging as the word 'Rainbow' refused to come out.

But when every muscle on Rainbow's back began tensing, her eyes crossing, her mane practically standing on end with the effort of trying to say her own name, Fluttershy leaped forward and rested a foreleg across Rainbow's shoulders. "We're both here, Twilight," she said. "Though there might be a little problem."

"Problem?" Twilight snapped her head over, and Fluttershy almost wanted to jump away from the tight expression on her face. "You mean other than the map again forgetting that there are six of us available for these missions? Other than that, you mean?"

"Ummm," Fluttershy said at the same time Rainbow did.

Closing her eyes, Twilight rubbed her forehead. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be grousing at you." She brought her hoof down onto the edge of the map with a smack. "The one I need to have a talk with is that stupid tree."

"Twilight, please," Rainbow whispered, her ears folding. "I can't— I'm not—" She gestured feebly at Fluttershy. "This isn't—"

"It's okay, Fluttershy." Twilight patted Rainbow's foreleg the same way Applejack had. "After all, when you and I went on our mission, you were the one who solved everything." Her mouth began tightening again. "I'm starting to think the map only sent me along so you wouldn't get too nervous..."

Fluttershy reached for Twilight's shoulder. "That's not true, Twilight, and you know it."

Twilight blinked at her. "That's nice of you to say, Rainbow, but you weren't there." She waved a hoof. "Anyway, I don't want to keep you. Just remember: the map chose the two of you as the best ponies to solve whatever friendship problem Cloudsdale's having. So go, be yourselves, and everything'll work out fine."

Rainbow's weird green eyes still seemed bigger than they should've been, and as much as Fluttershy wanted to just collapse right there, she knew it wouldn't do any good. What they needed to do was—

"Yes!" Fluttershy almost leaped into the air when the plan hit her, but she didn't want to tip either Rainbow or Twilight over. "Ummm, I mean, yeah, Fluttershy, let's...let's head back to your place and get your...your luggage together." She tried to wink, but that part of her face suddenly froze; swallowing, she went on anyway. "Maybe you can take a quick bath or something. To relax before we go."

"A bath?" Rainbow stared. "A bath? Why would I—?" Her hooves leaped to cover her mouth, and Fluttershy could almost hear bells going off in her head. "A bath! Yes! That...that'll be perfect!" She jumped away, sprinted for the door, stopped halfway there, and spun back, Fluttershy's saddlebags whapping against her sides. "Thank you, Twilight! Sorry I'm being so...so...so—"

"It's all right, Fluttershy." Twilight smiled. "We wouldn't have you any other way."

The giggle that Rainbow gave off then was so perfect, and the little spring she put in her step as she trotted out of the throne room so natural, Fluttershy couldn't stop her jaw from dropping.

Beside her, Twilight cleared her throat and elbowed her in the ribs. "You, too, Dash. Just...go easy on her, all right?"

"Me?" Fluttershy felt like she was falling over sideways, but her hooves, she couldn't help noticing, were planted firmly on the floor. "I'm not—" She stopped, not because of the strange choking but because she just didn't have any idea how she could possibly respond to that.

"You know what I mean." Twilight nodded toward the door. "I'll see you girls when you get back."

Hot and cold flooded back and forth through Fluttershy's whole body, and all she could think of suddenly was flying home and hiding under the bed. Still, she managed to return Twilight's nod before spreading her wings and taking off.

Forcing her smile to stay in place, Dash trotted through Ponyville with the phrase not gonna panic, not gonna panic, not gonna panic whirling around inside her head.

Even though you'll be Fluttershy for the rest of your life.

She ground her teeth, never letting her smile falter, and pushed the thought away. Her brain had been giving her nothing but worst-case scenarios ever since—

Wings whooshed beside her, and she jerked her head around to see herself landing there.

You'll never be able to pull another prank again, never anger your friends and alienate the town the way you used to all the time. You'll have to start wearing hats and nice dresses and being polite and pleasant and—

A hoof touched her shoulder, and she couldn't help jumping away. "Are you all right?" a voice very much like hers asked.

Everything that Dash wanted to shout and scream and hurl bursting into the sky jammed up inside her chest. "No," she finally got out in a horribly reasonable tone. "I'm not." She'd stopped walking at some point, she noticed, so she pushed her legs till they began moving again in the direction of Fluttershy's place.

"Yeah," came the reply, Fluttershy sliding into step with her. "Me, neither."

The silence between them went on, Dash not wanting to feel that weird blockage again, but as the town thinned and they reached the bridge across the stream, she couldn't keep quiet. "Do you really think a bath will—" The words 'wash this stuff off' wouldn't come out, so she finished with, "help?" instead.

"It has to." A little quiver behind the words let Dash hear Fluttershy in them, but when she said it again—"It has to!"—the steeliness made Dash's ears fold.

You'll be sitting in the stands sipping tea while she spins through a routine with the Wonderbolts. You'll see her on all the magazine covers, too, everypony saying how much better Rainbow Dash looks, rounder and curvier all of a sudden instead of jagged and sharp like usual. And when Discord comes to visit, you'll have to—

"Discord!" Dash spun on Fluttershy. "He could do something, couldn't he?"

"Of course I could," an all-too-familiar baritone sang out, and Dash spun again to see Discord stretched between two trees like a hammock. "If you'll recall, Fluttershy, I can do anything."

Dash's stomach tighened. He was looking at her when he said it.

"I'm—" Dash started, but 'not Fluttershy' wouldn't come out.

Discord nodded. "As pleased as pineapple to see me: yes, I know." He flashed and reappeared standing right in front of her. "And I must say, you ladies are smelling delightfully chaotic today." He clasped his lion paw and eagle talons together in front of his chest, bent down, and sniffed so deeply, Dash felt the updraft pulling at her feathers. "I don't know what you're up to, but I heartily approve."

"We're—" Fluttershy choked off immediately, too.

"On a mission." Discord straightened and grimaced. "Yes, I can smell that wretched Tree of Harmony on you as well." He shook his head. "Too bad." He snapped his claws, and a glowing orange cap appeared between his horns. "The Smooze and I are about to begin our semi-millennial bashball game, and I thought you might be interested. Especially you, Rainbow Dash: I doubt you've ever seen a real sport being played."

Dash's stomach tightened even further. He was looking at Fluttershy when he said that....

"I'm—" Fluttershy's rainbow mane bristled for a moment, but then she went slack, her head drooping.

"Alas, you'll have to somehow struggle through the disappointment." With a pop, Discord burst into nine smaller Discords, all of them wearing bright orange jerseys. "I'll be happy to give you the play-by-play in excrutiating detail when you get back," they said in chorus, "but I wouldn't want to keep you from your dendrally-appointed duties. So T.T.T.T.!" The whole group vanished in a cloud that reeked of rotten mustard, the words "Ta-ta till then!" echoing from it.

The silence that fell over them was quieter than anything Dash had ever heard. And as much as she wanted to say, 'He couldn't tell,' she didn't. She was pretty sure at this point that she wouldn't be able to.

Fluttershy sighed. "All right," she said scratchily. "We try the bath, then we head for Cloudsdale. If we finish the mission, maybe that'll— I mean, that makes our cutie marks glow again, right?"

"It does." Looking over into something that wasn't quite her own face, Dash felt the tiniest sprig of warmth flicker to life inside her. "And then—" She tried to find a way to say it. "Then maybe our lives can get back to normal."

"Yes!" Fluttershy leaped into the air and streaked toward her cottage. "C'mon, Eff! Last one in's a rotten egg!"

Dash stared after her, and the thought that squirmed through her—She'll make a better you than you ever did—pretty much doused every bit of her earlier warmth.

Author's Notes:

If anyone would like:

To read about the talk Twilight mentions she wants to have with the Tree of Harmony about who gets sent on these friendship missions and who doesn't, let me point you toward "Stupid Tree" over on my Baal Bunny account. :twilightsmile:

Mike

Next Chapter: 2: Past Imperfect Estimated time remaining: 48 Minutes
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